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Mark Crump's Articles

A few weeks ago we had a Reporting In From 'MMOG' Land editorial which took a closer look at the the discontent of the EverQuest community. Sony Online took wind of the angry EQ community and arranged a summit of sorts where the flew in various people from EQ guilds to hear the concerns. Not that said summit has been held we felt the need to do a follow up story ....

Auto Assault combines vehicular combat with role-playing elements. Players explore a post-apocalyptic future in customizable cars, motorcycles, semis and even tanks. Players battle other players both in arenas and in epic race vs. race wars for control of the regions in a devastated Earth.

Tabula Rasa is the latest massively multiplayer entertainment experience to come from the legendary creative mind of Richard Garriott and the all-star team of industry professionals at Destination Games. Developed from the ground up to be stable, fast and fun, Tabula RasaTM represents a refreshing new approach to the design of multiplayer online games.

Guild Wars is a Competitive Online Role Playing Game with an emphasis on rewarding player skill. In large head-to-head guild battles, cooperative group combat, and single player missions, players will explore a fantasy world while pursuing professions and acquiring skills to develop their own personalized character. Unique items, special abilities, and a wide variety of skills add meaningful value for the player and for their comrades.

"New Frontiers" features revamped geography for each Realm's frontiers as well as updated siege warfare, completely redesigned upgradeable keeps, a Realm War status map, and much more. New travelling systems enable users to get to the action faster with boat service between the frontiers and the ability to teleport directly to a friendly keep. The expansion also overhauls the game's Realm Ability system to further balance character classes.

"Dungeon Siege II" returns players to the beautiful fantasy land of Aranna, but it is a land scarred by civil war, where the lines between good and evil are blurred. Players must lead an elite battle party against Valdis, a vicious marauder determined to return the world to order, no matter the cost. "Dungeon Siege II" promises to set a new standard in role-playing games by combining an intriguing story-line with intense real-time party combat and cutting edge 3D graphics.

The discontent had been muted, but the underground (non-official) message boards of the EverQuest community were full of long-winded posts that all screamed the same thing: “You released Gates of Discord in February and a new graphics engine in May. Both don’t work. Late May, you announced a new expansion, Omens of War, due to come out at the end of July. Dammit Sony, fix the broken crap FIRST!”

"Catacombs" is an expansion pack for "Dark Age of Camelot" in which players are given the opportunity to explore underground cities – with attached adventuring areas – based on the backstory of one underground player race per Realm. Read more for the preview ...

"Zoo Tycoon 2" cranks up the excitement, challenge and fun of building the ultimate zoo, with 30 animals in incredible detail with more fun animations and a dazzling array of building tools and objects, including easier terrain-altering options, scenery, foliage, themed buildings, animal shelters and moats. Gameplay has been enhanced from that of the original title, with a new zoom feature and 3-D graphics that allow players to keep a closer eye on the action and craft more-creative zoos.

Wish defines a new category of online game, the "Ultra Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" (UMMORPG). Unlike existing MMORPGs that confine players to a server with only a few thousand other players, Wish's highly-scalable server cluster infrastructure allows the game to support tens of thousands of simultaneous players in a single shared world. Wish is the first massively multi player online role playing game that truly tells a story, and lets player actions have lasting implications on the world.